Cheat for “These columns don’t currently have unique values” error

Ordinary when you create a parent-child relationship between DataTables in a DataSet – there is a requirement that all values of the parent columns need to be unique. If they’re not – you will get an error: “These columns don’t currently have unique values“.

But there’re times when you need to make the relationship work even if those values are not unique. The solution is not to create constrain when creating the relationship. This can be done for example by passing FALSE as value for createConstrains parameter of Dataset.Relations.Add method:

oMyDataSet.Relations.Add("MyRel", _
oMyDataSet.Tables("TheParent").Columns("ParentColumn"), _
dtSet.Tables("TheChild").Columns("ChildColumn"), _
False)

14 replies on “Cheat for “These columns don’t currently have unique values” error”

Levent KAYA says:

08/08/2011 at 8:31 AM

Hi Yuri,
Thank you very much for this solution.

olga says:

10/14/2011 at 2:14 PM

Thanks! you saved my weekend

Yoga Herawan says:

02/27/2012 at 9:43 PM

I say thank you for you because you had shared this solutions.
🙂

ninja says:

06/27/2012 at 10:44 PM

WOW. 🙂 Super thank you to you dude 🙂

Fabián says:

10/30/2012 at 9:12 AM

Thank’s from CUBA my friend Yuriy.

SJ says:

11/06/2012 at 6:35 AM

Amazing Yuriy. Thanx!

joniemors says:

02/24/2013 at 6:20 AM

Idol na talga kita.. The best ka..You save my day.

Chirag says:

07/24/2013 at 1:58 AM

Thank you very much ………

ravi says:

02/21/2014 at 5:19 AM

i need avoid datagridview duplicate row pls give some suggestion for that

Yuriy says:

02/21/2014 at 11:19 AM

@ravi I suggest eliminate duplicates at the source before you bind data to the grid. E.g. if you’re running a SELECT statement – do a SELECT DISINCT – this is oversimplification, but that’s the idea – eliminate duplicates before they hit the grid.